An American Airlines jetliner en route to the Dominican Republic
with 260 people aboard broke apart and crashed moments after
takeoff Monday from Kennedy Airport, setting homes ablaze. There
were no known survivors aboard the plane.
Bush administration officials said the FBI believed an explosion
occurred aboard the jet, and witnesses reported hearing one and
seeing an engine fall off. But investigators suggested the noise
was caused by a catastrophic mechanical failure, and a senior
administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said:
"It's looking like it's not a terrorist attack."
Still, the city - on edge after the Sept. 11 attack in which
hijacked airliners brought down the World Trade Center - was put on
high alert in the minutes and hours after the crash.
Fighter jets flew over the scene in the Rockaway Beach section of
Queens. All metropolitan-area airports - Kennedy, LaGuardia and
Newark, N.J. - were closed, and international flights were diverted
to other cities. Bridges and tunnels were closed to incoming
traffic. The United Nations was partially locked down, and the
Empire State Building was evacuated.
Flight 587, an Airbus A300 with 246 passengers and nine crew
members aboard, went down at 9:17 am in clear, sunny weather in the
waterfront neighborhood 15 miles from Manhattan. The densely
populated section is home to many firefighters who were among the
dead and the rescuers at the Trade Center.
"I
heard the explosion and I looked out the window and saw the flames
and the smoke," said Milena Owens, who lives two blocks from the
crash site and was putting Thanksgiving decorations on her window.
"And I just thought, `Oh no, not again.'"
Witnesses reported hearing an explosion and seeing an engine and
other debris falling off the flaming twin-engine jet as it came
down. An engine was found intact in a parking lot at a Texaco
station, missing the gas tanks by no more than 6 feet. Part of a
wing appeared to be in Jamaica Bay, just offshore, Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani said.
A
plume of thick, black smoke could be seen miles away; flames
billowed high above the treetops.
"I
don't believe there are any suvivors at this point," Giuliani
said.
Roberto Valentin, a Dominican ambassador at large, said he believed
90 percent of the passengers were Dominican.
At
least 15 people were reported injured on the ground.
Four houses were destroyed, four were seriously damaged, and as
many as a dozen others sustained lesser damage, the mayor said.
Jennifer Rivara said she was looking out a window from her home
about five blocks from the scene. "I saw pieces falling out of the
sky," she said. "And then I looked over to my left and I saw this
huge fireball, and the next thing I know, I hear this big rumbling
sound. I ran to the door and all I saw was big black smoke."
In
Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said there were no
"unusual communications" from the cockpit. And a senior
administration official said that no threats against airplanes had
been received.
The National Transportation Safety Board was designated the lead
agency in the investigation, signaling that authorities have no
information other than that a mechanical malfunction - and not a
terrorist attack - brought down the plane.
A
law enforcement source at the scene told The Associated Press that
the likelihood of a mechanical problem stemmed from the fact that
flames were seen shooting out of the left engine and that witnesses
reported the plane had difficulty climbing and was banking to the
left.
Jet engines have been known to break up catastrophically, throwing
shrapnel through a plane. In 1989, United Airlines DC-10 crashed in
Sioux City, Iowa, killing 112 people, after the metal hub that
holds the engine's fan blades shattered and ruptured the jet's
hydraulic lines.
In
1996, an engine fan hub ruptured on a Delta flight as it rolled
down the runway for takeoff, sending shrapnel into the passenger
cabin that killed a woman and her 12-year-old son.
The NTSB said investigators recovered the Airbus flight data
recorder, one of the jetliner's two "black boxes."
In
Washington, President Bush met with advisers, seeking details of
the crash. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
intelligence agencies, the FBI and the Federal Aviation
Administration were reviewing all recent intelligence for any signs
that terrorism was involved.
Giuliani canceled his morning events and headed to the scene, where
he said: "People should remain calm. We're just being tested one
more time and we're going pass this test, too."
"Now we should focus all our efforts on finding survivors,"
Giuliani said.
"The first thing that went through my mind is, `Oh, my God.' I just
passed the church in which I've been to, I think, 10 funerals here.
Rockaway was particularly hard hit. The disproportionate number of
the people we lost - not just the police and fire, but even the
workers at the World Trade Center - were from Rockaway and Staten
Island."
Triage centers were set up a high school and an elementary school,
both of which were closed for the Veterans Day holiday.
A
hospital near the crash site said it treated about 15 people for
smoke inhalation and several others for abrasions. All of the
injured had been on the ground, not the plane, and none appeared to
be critically injured.
The plane was lying on top of about 12 homes, said Ed Williams,
community liaison for Rep. Gregory Meeks. "It's pandemonium here,"
Williams said. "We don't know if there are any survivors but it
looks really bad."
"This community was hit so hard by the Trade Center," said Fern
Liberman, who lives a few blocks away. "A lot of firefighters,
policemen and we had a lot of people at Cantor Fitzgerald. We were
hit very hard. ... Just on the heels of one horror, another."
The plane had been scheduled to leave at 8 am and arrive in Santo
Domingo at 12:48 pm According to the FAA, it took off at 9:14 am
and crashed three minutes later.
"First I heard a big explosion. then I saw flames come out from
behind the plane. And then a whole wing with the engine fell off,"
said Antonio Villela, a construction worker.
Witness Phyllis Paul said she heard the plane's engine. "It was
very, very loud. Because of what happened Sept. 11, it gave me a
chill," she told CNN. "It was getting louder and louder and I
looked out the window. I saw a piece of metal falling from the
sky."
Jackie Weiss, 50, a secretary at Rockaway High School, said an
engine fell on a house down the street from hers.
"I'm really devastated," she said. "My own son was telling me, when
I was upset by the World Trade Center, `But you didn't lose any
family members.' But seeing something like this ... I feel the
world is coming to an end."
In
the Dominican Republic, relatives of passengers crowded Santo
Domingo's airport, sobbing and grasping each other after hearing
about the crash.
"Oh my God!" said Miriam Fajardo, crying after being told that her
sister and three nephews were aboard. "I hadn't seen them in eight
years. Now they're gone."
The Trade Center was destroyed by two Boeing 767s hijacked out of
Boston's Logan Airport. One of the planes was operated by American,
the other by United.
Airbus said American Airlines has a fleet of 35 A300s.
In
1996, TWA Flight 800 left Kennedy Airport for Paris and crashed off
Long Island, killing all 230 people aboard. The NTSB concluded the
jet was destroyed by a fuel tank explosion, probably caused by a
wiring spark.
(China
Daily November 13, 2001)